eitohel



2 Sheets-Sheet 1.

(No Model.)

0. F. RITGHEL.

WAVE EDGE MATCHING MACHINE.

Patented Nov INVENTOR WITNESSES WQQRM 'uu ATTORNEY (No Model.) 2 Sheets-Sheet 2. O. P. RITOHEL.

WAVE EDGE MATCHING MACHINE. No. 373,333. Patented Nov. 22, 1337.

WITNESSES A TTORNEY PL PCTEIE. Photo-lithngmphur, Wmhingmn. 03C

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE...

CHARLES F. RITCHEL, OF BRIDGEPORT, CONNECTICUT, ASSIGNOR TO HIMSELF AND JACOB S. BAKER, OF NEW YORK, N. Y.

WAVE-EDGE MATCHING-MACHINE.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 373,536, dated November 22, 1887.

Application filed May 9, 1887. Serial No. 237,509. (No model.)

To all whom it may concern.-

Be it known that 1, CHARLES F. RIToHEL, a citizen of the United States, residing at Bridgeport, in the county of Fairfield and State of Connecticut, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in \Vave-Edge Matching-Machines; and I do hereby declare the following to beafull, clear, and exact description of the invention, such as will enable others skilled in the art to which it appertains to make and use the same.

My invention consists of improved contrivances of a matching-machine for making parallel wave edges of flooring, wainscoting. and other like lumber for similar purposes, as hereinafter fully described, reference being made to the accompanying drawings, in which- Figure l is a plan view of my improved machine. Fig. 2 is a side elevation, with a part of the bench broken out. Fig. 3 is a diagram illustrating the action of the cutters and the form of the cams required to cause the cutters to make parallel edges of the strips, and Fig. 4 is a diagram representing a modification of the wave edges to be made.

The narrow strips of flooring, wainscoting, or other like lumber, a, are to be dressed with wave edges b by the ordinary matching or tongue-and-groove cutters c for more ornamental effects than the common straight edges produce, the cutters being made to traverse laterally to the strips a distance equal to the height and depth of the waves at the same time the tongues and grooves are formed. For this purpose I now propose to mount the cutters on reciprocating slides d independent of,

each other, with a cam, e, to each slide for moving the cutters inward, and aspring or springs, f, of fiat, spiral, or other form between the slides for moving them outward, together with a positively-working feed-slide, g, for feeding the strips along the cutterssaid slide and the cams being so geared together that, the strips being first cut to a standard length-say eight feet-the waves will be uniform in all the strips relatively to their position lengthwise thereon, so that all the strips will match evenly at the ends, and thus will avoid any waste that might be necessary in cutting off the uneven ends if the feed were not positively geared with the cams. It also insures the Wave lengths to be as predetermined as they must be to match.

The feeder g runs between guides i, one of which may be adjustable on the table j, and has a pusher, y, to force the strips along, and a rack, 70, geared with the wheel Zon the shaft m, which also carries the cams e, and will be geared with any approved driving-power for turning it slowly to feed the stuff and work the cams as required.

The gear-wheel Z is made with a gap, 19, in the toothed rim for escapement of the rack when the strips have been fed past the cutters to be run back for another strip by the dropweight g. A pin, 8, on the wheel Z comes in contact with a stud, t, projecting downward from the feeder to start the feeder, so that the teeth of the rack and the wheel will mesh properly when feeding begins.

. The cutter-mandrels are driven at higher speed by the belts n, which are worked by any approved high -spccd driver. Suitable presser-rollers, 0, are employed to hold the stuff down.

The dressed stuff may be taken away by rolls a or other approved means for delivery to a surface-planer or otherwise.

In the diagram, Fig. 3, the full lines 2) represent the parallel edges of the strip necessary for matching closely when the strips are laid together, and which are to be produced by the cutters. By reference to the circles c in said diagram indicating the cutters it will be seen that when the cutters are at the crowns and hollows of the waves, respectively, the radial lines a at right angles to the strip inter sect the edges of the strip at the cuttingpoints and are parallel with the line in which the cutter-slides reciprocate, but along the inclines of the waves the intersecting radii w of the cuttingpoints are oblique to'the strip and to the line in which the cutters reciprocate; and it will also be seen that these intersecting lines vary from u to w and back during the passage of the strip from crest to hollow and from hollow to crest of the waves, according as the curves of the incline vary, and that during such variations the axes of the cutters must run farther from the edges of the strip than when said intersecting line is at u and at right angles to the strip. It follows, then, that cams constructed on curves corresponding to the lines '0 will not make parallel edges, but that they must have lines such as would coincide with the parallel edges to be produced at the crowns and hollows of thewaves, but varying outwardly therefrom between said points, as the axes of the cutters must recede from said parallel lines when cutting the inclines, as represented by the dotted lines so, and it is on such lines that I make the cams c. It is a peculiarity of form only necessary when the purpose is to actuate a rotary cutter, as here in shown, in the making of wave edges that will match uniformly close. For merely effecting the movement of a slide such form is not required. These lines of the cam-faces will vary for cutters of different sizes, and also for waves of different dimensions.

I have omitted to show the tongue and groove in the diagram and in the strip, Fig. 1, for greater clearness.

By the use of cams to work the cutter-slides forward and springs to effect the reverse motion the bearing of the cutter-slides on the cams is constant and there is no slack or lost motion, aswhen a cam-grooveis employed to effect bot-h movements.

What I have said in reference to parallel edges applies to strips of like form, such as represented in Figs. 1 and 3, to match indiscriminately, as will be most generally used;

but I do not mean that the cams will only 1 lation of the cam-faces to the edges to be made applies to the making of wave edges generally.

I am aware that machines have been made for tapering barrel-staves in which two rotary edge-dressing cutters are caused by cams to re: cedefrom each other while the stave passes half its length from one end between them, and then approach each other during the passage of the other half of the length of the stave, thus tapering it from the middle each way to the ends, as the machine of P. Flanders and others; but in these machines the angles of the taper are so slight that but slight variations occur, and Whatever variations there maybe are so overcome by the effect of the hoops on the taper form of the barrel that they do not have to be taken into account, and no such machines have any provision of any kind to prevent such variations, which, if not obviated in my ma-' chine, would be fatal to the manufacture of the kind of flooring that I'propose to make.

Certain other machines have been made with shifting rotary edge-dressing cutters to make articles with a single incline on the edge, as in the machine of William F. Perryn,

in which two separate pieces are simultaneously dressed on one edge, which has a straight incline that is not subject to the variations which the curved inclines are, and such machines have no such contrivance as is involved in my invention.

Having thus described my invention, what I claim, and desire to secure by Letters Patent,

1. The combination of mechanism for making wave-edge flooring, consisting of matching-cutters mounted on independent reciprocating slides moving to and from the edges of the flooring-strips, rotary cams which force the cutters up to the work, and a spring or springs to retract the cutters subject to the control of the cams, and a pushing-slide for feeding the strips, which cams have a series of uniform waves effecting a series of forward and backward movements of the cutters and producing a series of uniform waves 'in the edges of the strips during each forward move- 2. The combination of mechanism for making wave-edge flooring, consisting of-a pair of rotary matching cutters mounted on independent slides adapted to reciprocate toward and from the edges of the strips, respectively, and wave-cams governing the reciprocating movement of the -cutters, constructed with wave lines that coincide at the crowns and hollows of the same with the similar parts of the lines of the waves to be made, and vary outwardly relatively to the waves to be made along the inclines between said points proportionately as the cutting-points of the cutters vary along the inclines being made from the line in which the cutters traverse to make edges of the respective strips that will match uniformly-.-

that is, parallel to each other along the waves- CHARLES F. RITOHEL.

\Vitnesses:

GEO. W. KEELER, DWIGHT H. TERRY.

signature in.

ment'of the feeder, substantially as described. 

